


Back Soon? How Soon?

by Swifty (Swiftshade)



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Campaign: Balance (The Adventure Zone), Character Study, F/M, Ficlet, Hurt No Comfort, Lup's lost days, Sad, Short One Shot, TAZ Balance, after lup's note, barry's not handling it well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:14:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25026784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swiftshade/pseuds/Swifty
Summary: Lup's gone and Barry's not having a good time. A slow descent into Where The Fuck is My Wife.aka its 2 am time for Barry to experience emotions he hasn't wanted to look at.
Relationships: Barry Bluejeans/Lup
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	Back Soon? How Soon?

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! um I haven't written fic since like 2013, so I might be a bit rusty, but I hope you all like it! I thought I'd try a writing exercise and it grew and turned into this... Enjoy!

* * *

Day One

When Barry finds the note, he’s looking for her. She hadn’t been taking everything well… none of them were and he was hoping to spend some time with her, just the two of them. It’d been a while, but she's not in the common room, not with Taako or anywhere else, and eventually, he finds it in the kitchen."Back Soon" But he pays it no mind, It's not the first time she’s gone somewhere and left a note, then sauntered back over the hundred years he’s known her.

  
“Bro and I are starving, back when we’ve consumed more than the Hunger”

“Going out, new spell’s got a big blast zone, gonna see how big >:3c ”

“Merle’s jellyfish hat’s starting to reek, I need air that doesn’t smell like a fish market”

  
But Lup had been taking the fallout of their relics harder than any of them but Lucretia and Magnus, she’d been distant and pensive, and had been taking longer and longer trips away from the Starblaster, always coming back with news. Last night's glassing had been especially rough, he and Taako had tried their best to cheer her up and it seemed like it had worked. She probably just needs some space, she’ll come back eventually, she always has.

* * *

Day Three

The third day after she leaves, he’s a little more worried, she’s taken more than a few days before but if she was going on an extended trip she would usually give more details, she would tell him. Did she tell anyone where she was going? Dinner is quiet, and he can’t taste the food in his mouth.

  
“Has anyone heard from Lup?” he asks.

  
Only the Captain, Takko, Merle, and himself are at the table. Lucretia’s been distant, only eating in her room, and Magnus isn’t hungry.

Merle looks up

“I haven’t heard from her, she hasn’t called on her stone or nothin? ”

“No, no she hasn’t... Takko? You heard from her at all?”

At that, Taako, who had been pushing his food around his plate, frowns and sets his fork down and says,

“.. I haven’t heard Zilch, where did she say she was going again?”

  
No one answers, and the silence stretches,

“She didn’t…”.

* * *

A Week.

He’s pacing in the kitchen, he has to move, he has to do something, anything. He can’t find her, scrying hasn’t worked, tracking spells haven’t worked. She’s still not back, why isn’t she back? He’s not panicking, he can’t be panicking, panicking won’t help.

Nope, he lied, he’s panicking.

  
“Something has to have happened Taako, She’s never been gone this long, not without telling anyone, She should have called o-or been back by now.”

  
Taako’s been as just as bad as he is, if not worse.

  
“I’ve been calling ‘er all day Barold I still got nothin, Does Maggie have anything?”

  
Davenport comes in from outside, where he’s been on his stone of far speech.

  
“Magnus and Merle just reported in, they placed her heading southeast from Neverwinter a couple of days ago, but her trail’s gone cold.”

  
He shouts in the Direction of Lup’s room.

  
“Lucretia have you found anything?”

  
and a moment later she peeks out of Lup’s room

  
“She’s been tracking the glassings. But if she wrote anything about where she was going or what she’s planning, I can’t find it. There’s no notes, no travel arrangements I.. I can't find _anything_!”

  
Everyone pauses for a second taking that in, then Barry says

  
“We have to keep looking, I’ll keep scrying see if I can get anything on her, we’ll find her.”

  
They had to.

* * *

Two Weeks

“Excuse me, ma’am, have you seen an Elf woman who looks like this? She’s my wife.” He holds up a photo, “She’s about yay tall.”

  
“No, I’m sorry young man I haven’t seen anyone like her recently.”

  
“She’s been missing for a couple of weeks, are you sure you haven’t seen anyone like her?”

  
“No, but I’ll let the sheriff know if I see anyone like her around.”

  
He sighs. “…Thank you very much.”

“Excuse me, Sir. My wife’s gone missing have you seen her around anywhere? She looks like this.”

  
“No, I’m afraid not. Definitely would have remembered a flashy red cloak like that one. Best of luck to you.”

“Excuse me, have you seen my wife? She’s gone missing, she looks like this”

  
“I’m very sorry, I’ll keep an eye out though.”

“Excuse me..”

“No.”

“Have you seen..?”

“Afraid Not.”

“My wife..?”

“Not around Here.”

“She’s been Missing..”

“I’m sure I’d Remember”

“She looks like..”

“Haven't seen someone like that.”

“Please..”

“I’m very sorry”

“Have you seen..?”

“Best of luck to you.”

"My Wife?"

"I hope you find her..."

“…she’s been gone for a _month_...”

* * *

A Month

They’re starting to run out of leads. Anyone who might have seen her would have a hard time remembering a stranger seen in passing or sitting at a bar or strolling down the street a couple weeks ago. They just have to keep looking, she has to be somewhere. There has to be something they haven’t thought of, somewhere they haven’t checked. He needs to get ready, Taako found a new dungeon to check. He gets his bag.

“CIRCLE OF DEATH!”

  
And a sphere of negative energy bursts from his hand devastating the Kobolds attacking them, that are blocking their path to the prison at the depths of the dungeon.

  
“REVERSE GRAVITY!” cries Taako next to him.

  
And the Remaining Kobolds SLAM against the roof of the cavern.

  
They keep running forwards, they have a good lead, there’s a good chance this could be the one, she could be here in the deepest pit of this cavern. But somethings wrong, It would take powerful magic to keep Lup captive but all the enemies they’ve run into have barely posed a challenge.

  
“MAGIC MISSLE!”

  
Three bolts of energy fly from his extended hand at the kobolds and they fall.

  
“SCORCHING RAY!”

  
Fire bursts from Takko’s hand and more kobolds are burnt to ash.

  
They’re practically pushovers, they haven’t broken a sweat, but she has to be here.  
They rush down the final stairs and iron bars greet them, They burst open every cell one by one and YES IT'S... not her.  
There’s an elf woman here, but she’s not Lup. They free her anyway. She and the other prisoners thank them profusely, they’d been kidnaped off the road while traveling.

  
But it's not Lup.

They have to go.

  
They have to keep moving.

  
They have to keep looking.

* * *

3 Months

2:00 AM is peaceful, mostly quiet with a gentle chorus of frogs and crickets, with only the occasional rustling of an animal in the trees breaking the silence. The stars are out, shining brightly and the moon casts a soft light in the dark.

  
The others are sleeping, but Barry is standing outside the Starblaster, bent over a table covered in maps and notes, and newspapers, and statements taken from anyone who'd seen someone matching Lup's description. Covered with components for every tracking spell and scrying spell they could come up with.

  
No matter who they'd talk to in every town it's more of the same, 'No, I don't think anyone like that's been through here.' or 'If someone like that came into town I'm sure I'd remember.', ‘I think I saw someone like that heading south.’ leads that go nowhere, dungeons and keeps that he razes to the ground but turn up empty and more and more of the same and going around in so many circles until they end up back here trying to figure out where to start the wild goose chase all over again.

  
Taako has long since gone to bed, forced into getting some rest by the Captain and Magnus. It’s a miracle they hadn’t forced him into getting any rest yet, he’s probably next. He wouldn’t be surprised, he hasn’t slept, he looks a mess, his hair unruly, bags under his eyes, clothes disheveled.

  
And at night, when he’s alone, and it's quiet, it’s easy for the wall he's thrown up around his greatest fears to start to crumble, because he shouldn’t be alone, she should be here with him.  
And it becomes so, so easy to gaze into that chasm that holds every horrible doubt and fear he tries to bury away, the one he tries hard not to look at. The one that whispers that she's not coming back, that she's gone for good, that they'll never find her. If she could have, she would have come back to him by now, even as a lich.

  
He looks up at the Moon's soft glow in the sky. He whispers,

  
"Why can't I find her, where did she go?"

  
But the Moon is silent, and Lup is still missing, and Barry's is so, so very tired, but he can't stop looking for her, he won't, and the tears finally fall, he's been holding them back for so long.  
And he looks back at the maps spread out over the table, covered in circled locations that have since been crossed out. Places he and Taako have spent months combing and coming up empty-handed again and again. No leads. Not a whisper, not a rumor, nothing.

  
And he _breaks_ ,

  
he shatters the silence with a yell,

  
"DAMN IT".

  
He rages, and the table's contents are scattered, he can't bear to look at them,

  
"WHY COULD'NT YOU HAVE TOLD US WHERE YOU WERE GOING?!?".

  
He's sobbing now, and the pages are airborne,

  
"LEFT _MORE_ THAN A TWO!

LETTER!

NOTE!"

  
It's getting harder to see, the table is overturned, his voice is choked.

  
"LET ANY ONE OF US KNOW WHAT YOU WERE PLANNING?!? WRITTEN IT AS A GOD DAMN DIARY ENTRY, GIVEN US SOMETHING TO GO OFF OF?!?"

  
He stops and the air is heavy in his lungs,

  
"Some clue... a hint... _something_..."

  
The pages are on the ground now and it’s quiet. The crickets have stopped chirping, the air is still,

he slumps to the ground.

He holds his face in his hands and he sits there for what feels like hours, then the crickets and frogs start up again.

Then he looks up.  
His face is streaked with dried tear tracks. The moon is beautiful, and he chokes,

  
"Where are you?"

The moon is silent. And Lup is still gone.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it, It ends sad but its cause he is sad, but Lup gets found eventually, I just thought it'd be nice to look at what was happening while she was gone and everyone's memories were still where they belonged. Let me know what you thought tho, I'd love some feedback. :D


End file.
